A moral exercise in a moral desert
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Some people in the Epstein files are monstrously gross. Some are moderately gross. Some are situationally, aspirationally, or cosmetically gross. And it is also quite possible that some may be no grosser than you.
The files run to nearly 3.5 million pages. I’ve lost hours to thesearch bar, feeding it boldface names and receiving, almost unfailingly, a bright pellet of righteousness in return. Jeffrey Epstein’s correspondents who were most interested in sex were generally careful to be euphemistic about it—they were not waiting with excitement for an “underage girl” but for “my surprise” or a “gift.” Most of the others weren’t careful about anything. They preened. They flattered. They abased themselves before a man they must have known wasn’t what he presented himself to be—but whose private jet was very real.
The rot is undeniable, and it’s produced a moral backlash that sometimes flattens everyone into the same shade of stain. But the person who looks the other way is not the same as the person who looks for victims. The person who flatters is not the same as the person who abuses. The person who borrowed money from a monster is not necessarily a monster. Every holy text understands that sins are not equal, and neither are sinners. The unholy Epstein files deserve the same clarity.
Reading these exchanges as individual acts rather than a monolith is a useful exercise because you can begin to see how at least some otherwise-decent people—in a weak moment, in the wrong circumstance—behaved the way they did. Katie Couric and the former Prince Andrew are both Epstein correspondents—which turns out to be about as analytically useful as noting that Taylor Swift and Adolf Hitler both visited Warsaw. Couric complimented Epstein’s lasagna. Andrew has been accused of having sex with a teenage victim of Epstein’s trafficking network.
That’s an easy one. But the files get weirder, and more complex. Leon Botstein is the president of Bard College, a renowned “public intellectual,” and a guy with acute fundraising needs (Bard ain’t Harvard). While cultivating Epstein as a donor, Botstein was willing to play down to the level of his correspondent—offering favors, promiscuously tossing around the wordfriendship. So far as we know, he never wrote anything repellent—though more communication could always emerge. Buthe was awareof Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor; he also apparently owed Epstein tens of thousands of dollars for the purchase of a rare watch. Botstein, a watch collector, has said that he helped Epstein find the Swiss pocket watch, and “felt obliged to make the parties whole” after Epstein decided he didn’t want it anymore. I honestly don’t know how to assess that. I’ve also never had to raise money for a classics department.
The files remain a deep and largely unexplored cavern of information. Judgment may change with the facts. The following buffet of names is not comprehensive, only representative of the many categories of Epstein correspondents. The exercise isn’t a defense of anyone swept up in the Epstein drift net—many of whom have issued statements of regret for actions they don’t try to defend.
What follows is an attempt at proportion and calibration. Not absolution. Not exoneration.
In the multigigabyte data set mined from Epstein’s emails, many well-known people are discussed, debated, or merely mentioned—often in articles and messages forwarded among Epstein and his associates. Others appear only as names or phone numbers in Epstein’s black book, sometimes with no evidence that Epstein even knew them. This is where the Epstein files are least sinister—and most absurd. (Disclosure: I was once suggested to Epstein as someone he might contact, post-conviction, if he hoped to be taken more seriously as a thinker. It was terrible advice! And no, I never met or corresponded with Jeffrey Epstein.)
The Cleveland Cavaliers lost Game 1 of the 2018 NBA Finals, even though they had the ball in the final seconds of the game—shooting guard J. R. Smith didn’t know the score and dribbled out the clock. Epstein’s assistantemailedher husband about the viral screwup: “Lebron pissed.” So, yeah, LeBron James is “in” the Epstein files.
The founder of Khan Academy—one of the purer things on the whole internet—appears in a 2013automated emailthanking Epstein for creating a Khan Academy account and encouraging him to explore “physics, finance, and history.” Epstein had once taught physics at the Dalton School in New York, though he had long since left. What he did with the account is unknown.
In a midnightemailin 2015, Epstein asked the producer Barry Josephson (Enchanted,Dirty Grandpa) for thoughts on a theoretical Woody Allen stand-up special. Josephson suggested that “somebody like Jon Stewart could host/narrate.” Stewart mocked the mentionon his show. “Excuse me? I amoffended. ‘SomebodylikeJon Stewart?’ … Do I have the offer or is this an audition?”
In February 2013, Epsteinbrainstormednames of people someone called “bill” might like to meet. Among them: Anne Hathaway, the prime minister of Qatar, Victoria’s Secret models, and Ban Ki-moon. A subsequentemailsuggests that “bill” was likely Bill Gates. (I found no evidence that this invitation-by-dartboard gathering ever occurred.) Months later, Jean-Luc Brunel—Epstein’s alleged French scout for trafficking victims (see: “Beyond Gross” below)—emailed Epstein to say he had seen Ban atCinderellaon Broadway.
In 2013, a person whose name has been redactedaskedEpstein if he’d be willing to rent out his private jet to the White Feather Foundation so it could fly Goldberg to Monaco for a charity ball. The person offered to pay for fuel, but gently reminded Epstein that any money the nonprofit saved would be donated to water conservation. Plus, they noted, it happened to be the International Year of Water Cooperation. “no thnaks,” Epstein replied. Goldberg should thnak her lucky stars.
